


Understand Why

by verucasalt123



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Acceptance, Angst, Dreams, Fear, Gen, Insomnia, Nightmares, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 13:36:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1306756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verucasalt123/pseuds/verucasalt123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you really can’t appreciate the good until you’ve experienced the bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Understand Why

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to our Full Moon Ficlet mod, happy late birthday, and thank you so much for all you do to make this such a fantastic community.

Before the nightmares, Stiles never gave much thought to his dreams. Even when they were nice or just plain weird, most of the time everything slipped away like it was never there as soon as he opened his eyes. 

And it wasn’t ever there, not really. Because they were dreams. Learning the difference was a long process, as he found out that nightmares weren’t nearly so easy to forget; they clung to you in waking hours even as you wished them away. Sometimes they _were_ real, Stiles realized in horror while he was Void, or maybe shortly thereafter. 

It took a long time until he could sleep again – fear of what might happen if he wasn’t aware of what he was doing, fear of the nightmares, fear of the dark, the monsters, the hopelessness. He’d do everything in his power to keep himself from falling asleep, but a person’s body could only resist for so long. Even after he finally started to sleep, it took a good while before he once again began experiencing dreams instead of nightmares. 

_Staring at the ceiling in the dark_   
_Same old empty feeling in your heart_

But the dreams did come back, just as he’d hoped. Plain old dreams, even nice ones. His mother hanging their good tablecloth on the clothesline in the backyard, sun shining down, the breeze making the material flutter in the air. Stiles was so little in this one, he saw it moving on the wind like that and thought it would make a really nice cape for a superhero, if it didn’t have that embroidery on it. He saw her, peeking around the rest of the hanging laundry, laughing and pretending to hide between the sheets and towels and the sounds they made when they moved in the air, suspended from wooden pins. She’d make him try to find her and they would giggle like mad.

_Hoping one day you'll make a dream last_   
_But dreams come slow and they go so fast_   
_You see her when you close your eyes_   
_Maybe one day you'll understand why_

Stiles had no way to know if the dream he just had was a memory or something made up in his subconscious; maybe it was a combination of different things. That’s what his therapist had told him once, that dreams are usually just a big jumble of sounds and images and feelings that were in your head. 

He didn’t guess it really made a difference. He could remember _this_ dream, this picture of his mom healthy and smiling and happy, laundry fluttering in the warm breeze, himself without a care in the world. 

Since he’d come back from the dark place where the Nogitsune had taken him, Stiles had been a little bit afraid that this would be ruined. That thing used everything in his mind, including the precious memories he had of his mother, to feed itself on the chaos it caused. But now that he was back to himself, could control his actions and knew that he wasn’t sick like she had been, the dreams and memories of her weren’t so painful anymore. If he’d learned anything from that whole experience, it was that he should be happy for all the wonderful things he had instead of miserable over what he’d lost. As long as he (and his dad, and Scott, and Melissa, and…) kept the memories of her, there wasn’t a person or a thing who could take those away.

_And you let her go_


End file.
